Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1896 — HEATRECORDBROKEN [ARTICLE]

HEATRECORDBROKEN

AUGUST WEATHER IS EXPERIENCEO IN APRIL. By Beginning Before Snnriee the Thermometer at Chicago Works Itself Up to 88 at 4 o’Ciock. and Winter-Gar-ment-Wearing Public Melts. Oppressive Weather. Records in the weather line underwent a shock Thursday, from which they cannot recover for at least a year. With a unanimity that was admirable all the thermometers and all the old residents agree that it was the hottest April day that ever fell to their lot. The thermometer in the Chicago Auditorium tower, which always is bashful about climbing up too high, registered at one time during the afternoon as high os 84, but its metallic brothers In the streets below were not at all backward in proclaiming their knowledge that it was 88. The weather records hold only two cases approaching that of Thursday, and those two days were in 1893 and 1894, respectively. But no proofs written or unwritten could persuade the people that it wasn’t hottest day that any April ever produced. It began long before the sun shot up over Lake Michigan in the early morning. By 8 o’clock the jubilant mercury tube registered 78. From that time on the metal seemed to have things its own way. It shot up with each succeeding hour until at 4 o’clock it registered just 88. At the same time the marking in the Auditorium tower had it 84. The trouble, as everybody agreed, was that people were afruid to discard woolens, which had been in use during the winter, for lighter underwear. While the temperature went up and up the people kept saying with a fatal persistency, “Well, it'll be cooler to-morrow. It's only April and this can’t last.” But that brought no relief, and the tired men and women simply kept on perspiring. One man was overcome by the heat. Chicago was not alone In its torrldity. ;New York just tied the record of 84 deIgrees, and the official thermometer of St. |Louis, which, like Chicago's, is bashful about too high an ascension, registered 88. In Louisville there was a good, hot, baseball temperature of 86, and even frigid Boston mustered up a marking of 76. The hot wave extended over practically the whole Mississippi valley.